Jacqueline R.

I have found Instacart very useful at times, but have had to learn to accept a certain level of carelessness, disinterest and sloppiness both on the part of shoppers and customer service.
Shoppers often just ignore instructions. Customer service is sometimes interested in helping solve your problem and sometimes not. Beware of making too many complaints, (i.e. Spoiled produce, missing items, incorrect items, poor substitutions, orders delivered too early or too late, etc.) Instacart expects the customer to meekly accept that sometimes you are just going to have a bad Instacart experience and you should just suck that up. If you DO make what they consider to be too many complaints, they will place a restriction on your account which means no more refunds or credits for you, no matter how many orders their shoppers screw up. That sounds like theft to me, but maybe it's just my view point.
It isn't always bad. Quite often it's very good, with shoppers who communicate with you and really make an effort to do their job well. And when it's done right, it really is a time saver. Sadly, you just don't know when it's going to be done right.
Bottom line - keep your expectations very low, never tip extra up front (you can always increase your tip later if your order is handled well) and don't expect much in the way of customer service.